The Door to Netherworld
by Meteor Beat
Summary: What is Netherworld? Ryoga finds the answer to this and much more, a tavel and an adventure starts when he finds a young god. The saga of Netherworld begins here. This is just the first step for Ryoga and Kou.


_What exactly is a Netherworld? What's the deal with all of my stories? This current one-shot tries to look into these questions, leaving some unsolved for future short parts or new adventures._

_Some of you may not understand all that is happening here because this is the beginning of all, a story that will go way beyond Ranma and will travel through other universes, some of them Bleach, Naruto, Haruhi Suzumiya, To Aru Majutsu no Index, Love Hina, Evangelion and others too probably._

_For your information this story is directly connected to the story Doors, a series of one-shots and drabbles seemingly without any reason, but here it is explained, also, the story An Extreme Love is ALSO related, among several others which will appear._

_Some of you may not like the new OC and it will be explained more about his story in later stories. Kou has existed as a real character in my original stories and is a recurrent part in my works and becomes a regular part in the Netherworlds, so, along with the story._

_/  
_

The bandana wearing warrior grunted once again doing another push-up, it was the number 500 in succession, it wasn't that hard, in the past he was used to do five times that quantity, but he didn't had a seal on his body that multiplied the gravity of his body, it seemed like 5G was the current torture of the day.

With one mighty effort he rolled onto his back and the seal deactivated making him feel light as a feather.

Looking at a rock not to far away from him he finally saw at his current 'sensei' and what he was doing. The strange young God was currently looking through a series of documents, probably they had to do with their next destination.

For the past month Ryoga had done nothing but train and open doors, it seemed simple, until one started to see the true meaning behind those two things. Training had become a gruesome activity, he felt like part of the Dragon Ball Z anime, or if he had Gai as his sensei from Naruto, but he always had a smile on his face when he thought of how much powerful he was in comparison to whatever kind of training Ranma could have, well, at least the Ranma from his own universe.

His other job was opening doors, but these doors were specials; inside a dimension right in the middle of all the multiple universes, there was a temple filled with doors, these doors were a portal directly linked with a certain dimension but nobody could open them, it seemed that Ryoga had been born to do this task. Ryoga and Kou, his own sensei and partner, were given the task to open and investigate what these dimensions contained.

So far they have shown him how much his life could have changed, sometimes it made him feel jealous, other times scared, but they all were informative, and rather amusing, it was bizarre for Ryoga to contemplate other of his Mirrors gain true love in the most bizarre of places or living a life so different to his own, but it helped him open his eyes.

What would happen when they finished their travel through all the worlds? They were curious so they kept opening doors to see the result.

"Did they give you any new information?" Ryoga asked once he had regained his breath and some of his energy, Kou turned to look at his pupil shrugging his shoulders.

"Not really, they just answered my report of the last dimension" Ryoga's cheeks turned slightly red at the memory. One thing for sure, having to see and study all the different universes had matured him and somehow diminished his old reflex tied to female skin in the form of a nosebleed and faint, it was something good considering some of these dimensions.

"That dimension was… awkward" Ryoga said taking a towel and a bottle of water at the side of the rock, they were right now in one of the multiple training rooms in the city.

"Awkward was little, but the guys wanted to have the full… 'details' of the dimension" that in combination with the usual grin in Kou's face made Ryoga choke thanks to the bottle of water he had on his hand.

"THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"

"Come on, take it easy 'bub, you have to admit that 'that' dimension could have created a whole series of legendary JAV DVDs(1)" Kou said laughing at how red Ryoga's face could become.

It had been quite a shock when they went into that dimension, who would have known how perverted (as Akane usually screamed at the pigtailed martial artist) Ranma could be, but to witness how bizarre the dimension was, well, they were in shock, after all, in that dimension Ranma-chan and the Tendo sisters shared Ryoga, in every way much to the embarrassment of the universe traveler Ryoga.

To say that it was mortifying was the understatement of the century, but at least they finished their assignment in that world without any problem, now Ryoga wouldn't be able to watch any of the Tendo sisters in the eye for a very long time; Kou, for his part, had been tempted to talk with a Jiraiya from a random Naruto dimension to help him write that adventure, it could become an instant paperback best seller.

"Just shut up!" Ryoga said in a harsh tone making Kou finally regain control, with one last sigh he jumped down from the rock he was sitting and took out a blue colored card from his tracksuit pants pocket.

"Alright, alright, anyway, ready to continue the mission or you want to take a break?"

"Let's just go, the faster we do it the lest embarrassment I'll have"

"Come on, don't be so gloomy, maybe this time we'll find a nice fluffy romantic dimension with you and Ranma-chan" Kou said with his trademark grin making Ryoga glare at him.

"You are not funny, and there is something I always wanted to ask, what's with the whole card thing? Can't you just teleport or something?" Ryoga said pointing at the blue card on Kou's hand.

"Who knows, they have been using these cards for quite some time now, some people say that the Council decided to use cards so things could be more organized, I just thing they were too lazy and have played too much Yu-Gi-Oh" Kou simply shrugged before the card exploded into light and both adventurers were transported back into the temple.

**Open the Door to Netherworld**

/Several months ago/

It hurt, nothing of that was strange while the cold air of the city made him shiver slightly, it always hurt this few days, it was like if his own soul was used as a pincushion.

Ryoga knew people always called him melodramatic, that he always blew everything out of proportions, he could hear them, they didn't even try to hide their murmurs when he was at Furinkan, he was too well known there, no, he wasn't known, they just saw his anger and never even tried to understand, not that he let them, too many years out there in the wilderness could really rust whatever social skills he once had.

It hurt, not his body, only Ranma could really hit him hard enough for him to feel it, no, for some reason it was inside of him, all the pain felt like a huge weight was crushing his insides, the pain didn't go away, it never went away, sometimes he was alright, he could walk around, forever lost around the world, but sometimes he could look around and melancholy crawled into his body like a gigantic insect making him shudder and gasp for air at the sudden attack, it felt like something was missing, like if something was needed for him to continue.

The lonely warrior was not a stranger of dark emotions, heck, he even made them his own weapon of mass destruction, but this was on another level, it felt way beyond whatever little trouble he had felt the last year since arriving for the first time on Nerima, for some reason it felt much more serious, he didn't know why, but this time he really did felt alone.

A Hibiki was a weird creature, practically raised itself, with few friends and few acquaintances, with no help of others, walking aimlessly, that was the first reason any Hibiki rarely had kids, or if they had it was only one, it was a lonely existence, and few people knew the weight of being one and rarely wanted others to suffer it.

Whatever the reason or the meaning or from where it came from the curse of the Hibiki family there was only one truth, Ryoga felt alone, out of place, feeling that maybe he really didn't belong.

He didn't have one simple clue of when it all started, but he had a feeling that it had always been there waiting for him to open his eyes and take a good look at reality. It had been one blow after another, from the demolition of the cursed springs, to the reincarnation of the so called Phoenix God (being capable of reincarnating like a phoenix was not the same as being immortal or unbeatable), the youngest of the Tendo sisters almost dying (she probably was dead for a second there, the doll's eyes were closed after all), returning to Japan, watching how the woman he thought he loved with all his heart was getting married to your biggest rival and not fighting it (much anyway), the fiasco that resulted from it due to all the strange martial artists and the sad ending of the casket that was send.

He had been moving on a semi conscious state, or maybe it was finally the hit on the head he needed to wake up, who knew? The only thing that it brought was a shame that grew until becoming a permanent resident on his soul, shame and pain, it seemed that after all nothing would come in staying long on Nerima, nothing at all.

Ryoga felt… hollow, for the first time on his life there was no mission, no self-delusion, his breath started to hike at this idea, it felt like if his own body was trying to implode, a huge black hole in the center of his chest trying to finish what little of his life he still had.

Ryoga tried to breathe, the first few gulps of air tried to expand his lungs to alleviate the chest pain and help him relax, he didn't need to feel all this darkness or he would expel a giant Shi-Shi-Hokodan right in the middle of the residential area he was in, he was not going to become a killer, at this hour of the night dozens of people around where already in bed and he didn't want that on his conscious.

"Seems like you had better days" a clear voice took Ryoga out of his ruminations and made him jump up in the blink of an eye, his martial arts instincts snapped getting into a defense stance effortlessly looking in front of him.

Meeting new people was something of a constant for the lost boy, he always knew somebody new when he walked around Asia, but there was something about this person that made something on his brain wake.

At first glance there was nothing strange, the guy was taller than Ryoga but the looks of him were not Japanese, wearing a white zipped up hoodie with a dark blue undershirt peaking under the half way up zip and the dark blue tracksuit pants alongside trainers were a very normal combination, but the senses of every martial artists around Nerima were very well trained, capable of picking very little fluctuations in the air when it comes to energy, they could recognize other martial artists on the area, feel the intentions of others when they were in extreme danger, but this time Ryoga knew something was definitely out of place.

The energy, the aura of this person was not that of people like Ranma, Mousse or Shampoo, all of them seasoned martial artists; it felt soothing in a bizarre way, it was barely there but for Ryoga, someone who used dark emotions and turned them into external energy it came as a second nature to feel attuned to energy of the same caliber, it felt peaceful, like if it had no worries.

"Who…" Ryoga couldn't finish his own question when the other guy interrupted his phrase.

"The name's Kou… I'm a God" the guy said with a very big grin on his face making Ryoga's brain stop for a second, did the guy just said he was a god? "Second Grade, limited, God of Bad Luck at your service" the boy said presenting a small business card.

'Even the gods make these things?(2)' the young martial artists had on his head looking at the imprint of the card, at one corner the number 13 was printed in the same dark blue the 'god' was using encircled by a Japanese ink brush circle of a slightly darker shade that almost seemed black at one end and became lighter at the other end.

"A bad luck god? What do you want?" Ryoga wasn't yet over the surprise of finding a so-called god and his brain wasn't working at full power, probably Ranma would have used the opportunity for one of his usual jokes.

"I have a proposition for you, Hibiki Ryoga" Kou said with the same grin on his face.

/Later On/

The small establishment they had went into was one of the new 24 hours dinners around Nerima, it seemed they were a little popular but Ryoga was much more interested in the guy at the other side of the table. Dark short hair combed to the back, dark grey eyes seemed to be the only strange thing on him, besides the fact that he was a gaijin and had referred to himself as a god that is.

"So, let's start again, my name is Kou, just Kou, you are Hibiki Ryoga, current residence, variable due to the strange illness that falls on each member of the Hibiki family, with the exception of the family dog for some reason. User of old techniques such as the Bakusai Tenketsu and the Shi-Shi Hokodan, member and co-founder of what is fondly called the Nerima Wrecking Crew or NWC in short, sounds a like wrestling federation, so, did I hit the nail?" Ryoga's eyes went into a line looking warily at the 'god' in front of him.

"How do you know all that?" the young man in white simply took another sip of the black coffee before closing his eyes thinking on the answer.

"For you it could seem weird, but is not that I have investigated about you, yes, I read about it but not in the way you think, and neither I have spied or done something bizarre as that… sometimes the truth is weirder, way weirder, than fiction or reality, so let me tell you a history" the young man took a deep breath and crossed his arms over his chest ready to begin a story that many people would fine unbelievable.

"Have you ever heard of the term Multiverse?"

"The what?" Ryoga was at quite the lost at the term, which was obvious considering he had steered all his life into martial arts.

"The theory says that there are an infinite number of alternative dimensions that are different between them, different events in there changed history and none of them are the same, for example, in one dimension you had your fight with Ranma in the vacant lot and your rivalry ended so you never had a reason to chase him around the world which resulted in you not having a Jusenkyo curse, or when Shampoo first arrived you cut down her bombori before Ranma could knock it which resulted in you being engaged to Shampoo, with me so far?"

"I… think so… I mean… that sounds way too weird, do you even believe in what you are saying?" Ryoga could be proud in the fact that he had seen things no one on Earth had seen, demons, phoenix, giant creatures but this took the cake.

"Hey, you change into a little black piglet depending on the weather so I wouldn't use the skeptical card in this case 'bub" the other boy said with that same annoying grin on his face making Ryoga turn a little pale.

"How do you…" once again he was stopped when Kou raised a hand.

"I haven't finished, questions after the whole explanation please, take it easy, and practically everyone knows you are P-chan, with the exception of Akane, but that's another story. Okay, you see, that's the theory, but that's not the whole truth, yes, there are alternative universes out there, but there are hardly infinite, some are born others simply cease to exist, like a living being or like a star, but what you may not known is that every single story or movie you have seen or read in fact exist in another dimension, they all exist, with their own set of alternative universes after all."

"Okay, this is starting to sound like a stupid thing, do you want me to believe that? I'm sure this is just another stupid joke of Ranma, right? I mean, this makes no sense, this is all Ranma's fault!" it was obvious Ryoga had went out of the confused and shock state and reverted to his usual angry 'everything-is-Ranma's-fault mode, with a simple sigh Kou started to look for something on his pants pocket and finally took something out, it was a tankoubon, but what was printed in the cover made Ryoga freeze in the middle of his rant.

It was with shaking fingers that he opened the cover and started to skip through the pages, little by little his eyes were getting bigger and bigger not quite believing what was in front of him. He wasn't any stranger to manga, he even had several with him all the time on his backpack, but this was way more bizarre, in the first chapter was a young girl fighting against a panda, a very well known girl for Ryoga, it was when Ranma arrived on Nerima, Kasumi had told him the story once he arrived and both Ranma and Akane were in school.

"This is not real, Ranma probably tricked someone and made him print this, or maybe Saotome-san sold the story for more money, this is just a trick" Ryoga said trying to deny what he had in his hands before Kou put two other things on the table, one was an art book with both Ranma-chan and Ryoga fighting in the full-color cover, the other seemed to be a case with a title and a very known image printed on it.

"The first is an art-book I found in another dimension, it has very good pictures, just, don't look inside for the moment, please" Kou seemed to have some reservations about the art-book, what the young God couldn't very well tell him was that in that particular dimension the manga of Ranma½ had as a main pairing Ranma-chan and Ryoga, leaving it alone for the moment Ryoga turned his eyes at the DVD case "that is Nihao, My Concubine, it is an OVA, is when you guys where trapped in that island and all the girls were being abducted, funny adventure, anyway, believing now?" It seemed that Kou was enjoying his confusion and shock once again, Ryoga simply threw a killing glare at him wanting to hit him, but he wasn't Ranma and he didn't know all the details yet.

"Okay, maybe I do believe you, but what's the meaning of all this? How is all this a manga? And how all this fit into your pocket"

"Is bigger on the inside(3)" Kou answered with a big grin before continuing his story "so, now you see, this" Kou said referring to the manga on the table "is the main story, a universe is so powerful that it creates other variations of itself, this universe is called The Root, is the center of all"

"You mean this one?" Kou simply shook his head in a negative.

"Nope, a Root is so powerful that no one can get into that world"

"So you are a universe traveler or something? I thought you were a God!"

"I am a God, could you calm down? Take it easy, I'm trying to tell you the whole story. Okay, so, this Root is the most important, which this manga represents, what we read IS another dimension somewhere, a person here gets the idea and writes not knowing that they are in fact making small contact with another dimension, in my dimension you were a manga, until I learned the truth"

"And what does that have to do with me?"

" I'm arriving there, okay, so sometimes there are several changes, several ideas that make you think what if something happened, what if Ranma really had married Akane the first time, or what if you and Ranma were friends, or what if Ranma decided to stay a girl or never returned to normal after that bump on the head, things like that, those also exist, a multitude of alternative universes which are codenamed Branch universes, and even beyond them there are Leaf universes, places where everything could happen, from the bizarre to the complete horror. I am part of an organization that looks into this universes and work as something as a police and army when something bad happens in them or people realize they can travel between universes" Ryoga's mind was simply spinning with all this information, all their adventures and fights were read in other dimension? They existed? A whole army that fought for them? This was way beyond what he had in mind, and he could… he could exist in other universes.

"So I… there are others…" he couldn't finish the phrase but Kou nodded, before answering he put a couple of coins on the table and signaled for Ryoga to go after him outside, the cold wind of the night made Ryoga focus once again, the chill making his senses sharper, the same feeling of calm was still there, he still wasn't sure of what the point of all this was, but he knew that listening to whatever this man was telling him was much better than returning to the melancholy and sadness he felt a couple of hours ago, quickly leaving his thoughts behind he decided to focus on his companion for now before he started to wander who knows where like usual.

"We all have different versions of ourselves, these are called Mirrors, a Mirror is that, a different version of yourself, sometimes you can be completely different, other times there are only a couple of differences, heck, sometimes several Mirrors can even be in the same universe, there is an instance that was documented, I think it was called Ryoga-Crossover or something like that (4)" Kou said trying to remember well that document "several you that were summoned into one dimension, rather nasty business, one dimension was trapped and sealed so nothing can come in or out"

Ryoga heard the whole story with all the attention he could, there was something in the story that simply called for him. It was all so bizarre, way even beyond his weird life. There was something there that seemed strangely familiar.

"Sometimes, in some leaf dimensions there is a strong power, a key to some, energy so vast that sometimes other people look for it for their own purposes. These worlds are code named Netherworld"

"Netherworld?" Ryoga asked looking at his surroundings noticing the forest they were arrived.

"Yes, people in this universe can sometimes have power they don't know they had, they are blessed you could say, a Netherworld can sometimes affect even the Root universe they were born from, that's why I'm here, I was born in a Netherworld… so do you" Kou said extending his arm to Ryoga showing a small card on his hand, it reminded the lost boy at those trading card games he had seen around Japan all the time "don't you feel alone? Like if something was wrong with you? Haven't you felt that even though you have met people, made friends of them you cannot connect with them in reality? That there is something pulling at you and you don't know what?" Ryoga unknowingly nodded his head at these words.

"That's why I am here, I am Kou, a being born in a Netherworld, I have seen and done things that make other people wonder if it is truth, I have become a dimension slider, I have died and reborn… and now is your turn Ryoga, to accept this change, to give a new step"

"What…"

"You are needed Ryoga, you were born to do something no one else can, a mission that will let you see all these possible ways, all these worlds and to learn, it is time to step into your destiny, and to open the door to the Netherworld" Kou said throwing the card into the air making a circle appear above them before both disappeared from that world.

And the rest.

Is silence.

_I know it can be a little weird, but this is only the beginning of the Netherworld stories, this continues in the story Doors, Kou's story starts in the Ranma1/2 'Lament of a Star' and 'Fragments', just look for the word Netherworld before any future story, now, the explanation of the numbers around the fic._

_ (1) JAV means Japanese Adult Video, is the porn in Japan, THAT dimension will be part of Doors, but the whole *cough* story will probably be uploaded in adult fanfiction, not here._

_(2) In Japan, when you introduce to someone is a series of bows and exchange of business cards, you can watch Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, the Japan episode for a show of how tedious this can be, it also is something that is featured in Oh My Goddess!, and yes, Kou has to do with it, this is explained in the future story Lament of a Star._

_(3) That phrase is from Doctor Who's episode Runaway Bride, one of the best phrases in the season._

_(4) Ryoga-Crossover IS a real fanfiction by Mark Latus, a somewhat old story that plays with the idea of Multiverse, it is quite hard to find these days but I wanted to use it as if it had really happened, who knows, maybe your fanfics will be mentioned in these stories._


End file.
